Much Abides
by Jessi2
Summary: Sometimes, you just need to talk.


Set after A Bugs Life.  
  
Title: Much Abides  
Author: Jessi galaxyj@alaska.com  
Censor: G/PG  
Disclaimer: No names are used, so use your imagination. 'Ulysses' is by Alfred Lord Tennyson-A lovely poem that I highly recommend.  
Notes: Was cleaning out the ol HD and found this laying about. Hope you enjoy :)  
  
  
  
"What is she to you? That's what it asked, what it demanded, while it was in me. I didn't answer. Maybe I should now."  
  
"Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't. Either way would prove...difficult."  
  
"I thought that's why we are here now. To help things to be less difficult."  
  
A rueful smile fluttered across her face. "Perhaps." She paused, letting ideas congeal into thoughts. "It is complicated."  
  
"Things always are. Think of how boring life would be without complications."  
  
"My people" she paused for a moment, searching for the words. "My people do everything we can to prevent...complications. We have order, structure. We do what we are ordered to do- never any more, never any less. We do not leave the structure that has been erected for our lives. It is not the same for your people. You revel in you complications, you embrace them. They make you who you are. You...You strive to be more, we strive to stay the same."  
  
His eyes had closed as he listened. "But you are no longer the same as you were...you're more...you're you."  
  
"Perhaps. But that does not change the past. That does not change where I came from. The old me is still as it was, even though I am different in other ways."  
  
"I know. I know." His eyes opened. "I wish I could show you...tell you what I feel."  
  
"You can. As I can show you. We just need to learn how to be...compatible."  
  
"Yeah..." They were both silent, contemplating, when he began again. "I've been thinking about death lately."  
  
She didn't need to ask why.  
  
"What about God? What about Faith? What about Heaven? What about Hell?" His voice rose with each statement- confusion, anger, and fear evident.  
  
"You find those questions disturbing." It was a statement, not a question. She could see the answer in his eyes. He had explained the concepts before, but to her they still held no meaning. She was a soldier. She will fight, she will die. There was no more.  
  
"They reminded me...of things I would rather forget."  
  
"Your home?"  
  
He looked her in the eyes as he answered, forcing the meaning of the statement. "No, not home anymore. Earth is lost to me. I can hope...but I no longer depend. I couldn't live there now. Not with how I feel..." The unspoken 'about you' hung heavy in the air.  
  
She looked down, but didn't say anything.  
  
"I still see it in my dreams. A miracle. Dinner with my father. Basketball with DK. Nothing important. The little things that you don't know you'll miss until you wake up and realize you will never experience them again- Staying up all night to watch a B sci-fi movie marathon. Eating too much pizza with you best friend, then getting smashed on cheap beer, just because you don't have to wake up and go to work the next morning. Hiking to the top of a mountain, then standing there with your arms out, catching the wind."   
  
His grief was evident through the haze of memory. She could understand. At least he still had the hope. She had none.  
  
He blinked, as if suddenly remembering that she was still in the room with him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..." He trailed off, unwilling to give the statement voice. If it wasn't spoken, then it could be ignored. Between the two of them, he was better off. "...I'm sorry."  
  
Straightening her posture with an effort, she answered with hardly a quiver "I know. It is as it is. Dwelling on it does no good."  
  
She turned to face the stars. "You. Your species. Seem to possess the ability to grow and change at every moment of you life. With my people, however...You revel in your differences, embrace them and let them either upraise or destroy you...My people shun those who are different, label them inferior. There is no other way."  
  
She turned to face him, and her eyes pleaded with him to understand the reason for her narrative, for her actions.  
  
The slight shake of his head let her know that he understood, but that he didn't see how a people could live like that. When a person has known nothing but freedom and individualism, the alternative is so horrifying that they can not even conceive of it, much less of a person wanting to live like that.  
  
He sighed. "I understand, and I will wait...it's just that after all that happened, I wanted...needed you know."  
  
And she smiled.  
  
Though much is taken, much abides; and though  
We are not now that strength which in old days  
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are,  
One equal temper of heroic hearts,  
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will  
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.  
-from 'Ulysses' by Tennyson  



End file.
